By Bridget Hamilton
It can be easy to scoff at someone encouraging you to meditate. To some people, it doesn’t sound like a good use of their time. To others, it might sound like a hoax. Some people will say meditating doesn’t work for them. You may even question why you would meditate, thinking you have too many other things to worry about in life.
Photo: Jared Rice on Unsplash
We respect that. As busy working men and women, taking time out of the day to meditate can seem like a waste of time that can be spent elsewhere. As they say, “Time is money.” However, we are acutely aware of how meditating has helped us and believe it can help you too.
For starters, many people get meditation all wrong. They think that it’s all about sitting alone in the quiet and somehow stumbling upon inner peace. We thought that too. While that might work for others, we’ve found that the best experience comes from using guided meditations.
Photo: Simon Rae on Unsplash
If there is a moment of silence, our brains naturally like to fill it with unnecessary information. It can be easy to think about what you may be eating for lunch, work tasks or caring for your family. With guided meditations, there are words and soothing sounds that can help you realign your focus. Often, a person with a calming voice narrates something — a walk through the forest, being near an ocean and so on. You can let everything else go and focus just on those words. Soon enough, it will almost be like you’re there, instead.
The Physical and Mental Benefits of Meditating
According to the Mayo Clinic, meditation has many mental and physical benefits. For example, it can help you manage stress, focus on the present, increase your creativity and reduce negativity, and hold many other emotional benefits. Physically, it can help with symptoms of anxiety, asthma, heart disease, chronic pain, tension headaches, sleep problems and countless others. In an article by Healthline, it can also lengthen your attention span and fend off age-related memory issues.
If you don’t know where to start, there are many great apps and podcasts to help you along your journey. Of course, you’ve probably already heard of Headspace, a meditation app that is advertised widely. They have guided meditations, stories, sounds and other helpful tools to help you get into the right, well, headspace. While the app itself is a great resource, it is $12.99 a month.
If you’re looking for a great guided meditation, we suggest the Meditation Minis podcast. You can find it on Spotify, their website, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and YouTube. Best of all, this is a completely free resource, and the host does a fantastic job at providing a soothing environment.
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